11 Best Thanksgiving Side Dishes

In our honest opinion, Thanksgiving dinner is, at its core, all about the sides. Like a film with an ensemble cast to rival the star, an ideal Turkey Day feast should feature a curated lineup of delicious sides to go along with your centerpiece bird.

So that’s what this lineup is all about: from shockingly flavorful veg dishes, to perfectly ooey gooey macaroni and cheese, to hearty sausage stuffing, here are some of our favorite standout sides sure to invite returning for seconds (or thirds!).

Beet Rösti with Rosemary

Mark Bittman’s take on the classic potato rösti swaps in grated beets for spuds, lending a festive hue and sweet, earthy flavor. We like to use a high-quality non stick pan—like our ProCoat or CeramiClad Non Stick Frying Pan—to help get an evenly golden brown crust on the outside, effectively turning this into a giant fritter.

Southern-Style Stuffing with Gizzards and Gravy

This stuffing from Oakland’s Matt Horn pulls no punches, using smoked sausage, turkey gizzards, and bacon to infuse every inch of the cornbread-and-French bread base with rich, meaty flavor. While you can use boxed cornbread, we highly recommend going the extra mile and making Horn’s accompanying cornbread recipe.

Albi’s Spicy Potatoes

This recipe from Chef Michael Rafidi of Washington, D.C.’s Albi starts by infusing butter with both sweet and hot pimentón (Spanish paprika), then using it to par-cook your potatoes in a low oven before frying them off.

Our French porcelain Baking Dish ensures even heat transfer for perfectly firm-tender potatoes, while our Enameled Cast Iron Dutch Oven keeps frying oil at a steady temp for the perfect crispy, golden brown exterior. These rival even your favorite mashed potato recipe—and were one of the Made In Studio’s favorite recipes of 2023.

Fennel Panzanella Salad

Traditionally a summertime dish, panzanella gets an autumnal upgrade from sweet roasted fennel and pomegranate seeds. We like to use our Enameled Cast Iron Skillet to get a deep, flavorful char on our bread, elevating this from a simple bread salad to something a bit more intriguing and flavorful.

Dutch Oven Dinner Rolls

We’re not sure which we’d rather do: eat all of these plush, buttery rolls in one sitting, or curl up with them like a pillow and go to sleep. Our Culinary Creative Director Rhoda Boone uses our heavy, insulating Enameled Cast Iron Dutch Oven to achieve an evenly golden brown crust on the top of each roll, along with a steamy, tender crumb.

Mac and Cheese with Spicy Breadcrumbs

Just because you’re already serving stuffing, mashed potatoes, and gravy doesn’t mean you should hold back on the mac and cheese (which we are firm believers is, in fact, a Thanksgiving dish). Austin-based Chef Jo Chan’s recipe incorporates shio koji—the fermented grain-based product used to make umami-rich condiments like soy sauce and miso—for a more complex, savory profile.

Pommes Aligot

Essentially cheesy mashed potatoes dialed up to eleven, this classic French dish is created by aggressively stirring mashed, boiled potatoes to develop the starches, then folding in melted cheese and a lot of butter. The result is a silky, stretchy, gloriously cheesy dish, with a texture not unlike straight-up melted mozzarella.

We recommend using an enameled cast iron Dutch oven for this dish, as it maintains the heat needed to properly melt all the cheese and butter—plus, it makes for an equally beautiful serving vessel.

Sweet and Sour Braised Red Cabbage

Chef Mashama Bailey’s recipe for braised red cabbage shows off yet another delicious facet of this all-star cruciferous veg. A slow, steady braise in our Stainless Clad Rondeau or Saucier turns hearty cabbage into a sweet, succulent side dish—almost like a warm sauerkraut, but way better.

Raw Brussels Sprouts Salad with Toasted Hazelnuts

Every Thanksgiving table needs a dutiful green side to break up all the starch and beige—and this nutty, crisp, surprisingly refreshing salad is all too happy to oblige. One bite in and you’ll be wondering why you’ve resorted to roasted Brussels for so long.

Stuffing with Swiss Chard and Kale

While we love the idea of getting a full serving of veg in with our favorite starchy side dish, Nancy Silverton’s hearty greens-filled stuffing isn’t just a simple twofer: with wilted chard and kale, plus reduced chicken stock, this recipe really does take the cake—er, the bread.

Blistered Green Beans Almondine

Gloppy green bean casserole, be gone: there’s a new kid in town. Rhoda Boone blisters blanched beans (say that three times fast) in a hot Carbon Steel Frying Pan until they’re nicely charred, then tops with a mixture of pan fried shallots and toasted almonds as an ode to the classic French side.

Ready to Cook?

There’s nothing like the perfect forkful of mac and cheese, stuffing, gravy, turkey, and cranberry sauce—especially when every individual element is delicious in its own right. With professional-grade cookware like our Carbon Steel Frying Pan, Enameled Cast Iron Dutch Oven, and porcelain Baking Dish, that crispy, savory, golden brown bite is even easier to achieve.

Find all of these and more in our Thanksgiving Collection for everything you need to make the biggest cooking day of the year go of without a hitch.